Plasma Tv

By Author: David Tang
Total Articles: 198
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The television landscape has radically changed over the past decade. TV's are not just larger and less bulky. The technology that drives their high-definition pictures represents a new era of science. For this reason, many consumers feel inadequately informed on the showroom floor. Fighting for territory on this technological landscape are two radically different TV types. LCD TV's and Plasma TV'S, while looking similar on the outside, are actually very different on the inside. Only educated consumers can make discerning decisions when making purchases. This article will examine plasma TV's, explain how they work, and list the pros and cons they offer the consumer.

For forty years television technology has revolved around cathode ray tubes. When a screen became wider, the set also grew in width to accommodate a tube length large enough. Cathode ray tube sets produced an excellent picture but the size of the sets made large televisions bulky and heavy.

Plasma TV technology made possible large screens that did not proportionally enlarge the width of the TV set. The way plasma TV's do this with pixels that are filled ...
... with a gas of free-floating ions called plasma. When the electricity is run through the uncharged particles, electrons emit energy in the form of light. The pixels are grouped by three in a combination of red, blue and green. With these three colors in varying degrees of brightness, each pixel set can produce a full spectrum of color.

Plasma sets produce a picture that is almost as good as cathode ray tube sets. The difference in picture quality is negligible and the advantages of plasma TV's over cathode ray tube sets quickly made plasma TV's desirable in the market. Besides the narrower large screen, these advantages include a wider viewing angle and a bright picture that can be viewed well in dark rooms.

While plasma TV sets offer a better picture than their LCD counterpart, plasma TV's do have drawbacks. They consume more energy, although Panasonic, the biggest manufacturer of Plasma TV's, claims to have greatly reduced power consumption with their latest models. Early plasma TV's were prone to burn-in, or a ghost image permanently visible on the screen. However, newer models have an extremely low risk of burn-in during normal use. Plasma TV's will reflect glare whereas their LCD counterparts will not. Again, however, newer technology has greatly remedied this problem.

The new choices in television technology offer consumers better and more varied products than a decade ago. Having a knowledge of the technology behind the screen makes shoppers better decision makers.